21 wide-ranging books that changed people's lives
 In a viral reddit thread, one user asked, "What is that one book that absolutely changed your life?" Here are 21 you'll want to add to your list.
For your (and your family's) TBR list Fun & quizzes Longer reads
For your reading list  Credit: never_withouta_book Love in Color: Mythical Tales From Around the World, Retold by Bolu Babalola "Love is the prism through which I view the world. I truly believe it binds and propels us. This isn't a naive denial of the darkness that we know exists in the world, rather it is a refusal to allow the devastation, the horror or the heartache to consume us." —Bolu Babalola
In Bolu Babalola's debut short story collection, Love in Color, the critically acclaimed writer beautifully reimagines love stories from around the world, venturing into folktales birthed in West Africa, mythology in Greece, and everything in between. While keeping the names of the characters and historical figures the same as in her source material, Bolu adds a touch of tenderness to these stories, ensuring love is the driving force of every tale, while topping them off with a modern twist, like placing their first date at a bar. This anthology delivers an appetizing menu of short stories, each made up of tantalizing adventure, placing women at the forefront — detailing the delicate and voracious ways love can be approached. The collection shows just how multifaceted love is: Like art, love's appearance and meaning is different for everyone, shaped by the person enveloped in the emotion. Read This Story If You've Ever Been With Someone Who Didn't Deserve You  Ọṣun was used to being looked at. In awe, lasciviously, curiously. Instinctively, she knew when eyes were drawing across her, trying to figure out what they could from her figure. Chin slightly raised, arms and legs lean and athletic, and wide hips that swayed and exuded a femininity so innate it refused to be contained; to some it was a call they felt they had to respond to, to others, a declarative statement of power, something to fear, revere.
As a competitive swimmer at Ifá Academy, she had an intrinsic allure that followed her as she flew into the air before diving into the pool. Prizewinning, majestic, her limbs flew through chemicalized water as if it were the sea and she were the current itself. The energy itself. The gravity from the moon itself. She transformed the pool into a sun-dappled lake. Though she moved with incisive swiftness, she made her preternatural ability look breezy. It was casual magnificence. She pushed and pulled as if she were conjuring power from the water. Those who watched often mused that it seemed as if the water only existed to propel her.
Ọṣun was accustomed to being a spectacle, people observing her in wonder, trying to surmise what they could from what they saw. Which was why she hid as much as she could, and kept as much of herself to herself as she could. Swimming was her sanctuary, it was just a shame that it necessitated an audience. During swim meets she paid no attention to the roar from the bleachers or the superfluous commands from her coach (the coach was decorative, a symbol that represented the school's power over Ọṣun's triumphs, as if Ọṣun hadn't made a dry basin bloom into a lake by dancing in it at 3 years old).
In those swim meets, she focused on the sound of the water smacking against her skin like a hand against the taut hide of a talking drum. Her swimming became a dance to a rhythm she was creating with the water. With each hip switch a hand sliced through the water till she was no longer just a body among bodies within a false aquatic body, tiled and sterile. No, she was the body, the only body, vibrant and heavy breathing. By the time the music stopped, she was over the finish line, alone. All they saw was an excellent athlete; only she knew that she was a dancer.
Ọṣun was used to being looked at and ignoring it. Most people would say that, when they looked in the water, they saw themselves, but what they really saw was their reflection, light bounced back. A reflection was just the water rejecting an unwelcome intrusion. Water was generous, but mostly it wanted to be left alone. Come in if you want, drink if you want, but don't peer in without engaging. However, when Ọṣun's gaze met the waves, she really saw herself. Her hair was soft, dark, and roiling, with thick coils swelling around her face like a towering tide. Her face held deep, striking eyes that tilted inward slightly, as if too heavy to stay steady. They carried too much, they carried the whole universe, and were fathomless like the ocean. Her skin was as deep and smooth as a vast lake, its sparkling surface harboring an unfathomable depth beneath, a whole world beneath. The water beckoned her in as kin. She was a highborn: unknowable, untouchable, and unable to be contained. One could enjoy but never possess. Experience but not capture.
But Ọṣun felt captured by the gaze on her now.  ⭐️ = a BuzzFeed Books favorite Monday, April 19
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